Surprise: Trump, a Pathological Liar, Reportedly Asked His Lawyer to Lie to the Government About His Classified-Documents Cache

We hope it doesn’t come as a surprise when we tell you that Donald Trump, former president of the United States, struggles to tell the truth, and that when we say that he struggles we mean every time he opens his mouth, dozens of lies fly out like the monkeys in The Wizard of Oz.

Sometimes the lies are big and offensive, like when he declared, on 9/11, that one of the buildings he owned downtown was now the tallest one in Manhattan on account of the Twin Towers being leveled. Other times the lies are minor and largely pointless, like his oft-repeated claim that he’d been named Michigan’s “Man of the Year,” despite the fact that this award does not exist. The lies have been deranged, like when he quintupled down on the one that Alabama was going to be hit by a hurricane; they’ve been dangerous, like when he lied about COVID-19; and they’ve been legitimately insane, like when he said that Ivanka Trump had created 14 million jobs, despite the fact that the country had only added roughly 6 million during her time at the White House.

All of which to say, it’ll probably surprise exactly no one to hear that prior to the FBI raiding his home and uncovering numerous classified documents, Trump wanted one of his attorneys to lie to the government and say he’d returned it all.

The Washington Post reports that in early 2022, the ex-president asked Alex Cannon, an attorney who’d work for both the Trump Organization and the Trump campaign, to tell the National Archives and Records Administration that all materials requested by the agency had been turned over, despite the fact that he was still in possession of thousands more government documents. According to the Post, Cannon, who had “facilitated the January transfer of 15 boxes of presidential records from Mar-a-Lago to the National Archives, after archives officials agitated for more than a year to get ‘all original presidential records,’” did not feel comfortable making such a claim. He reportedly told people he didn’t know if all the requested material had been returned, and “other Trump advisers also encouraged Cannon not to make such a definitive statement,” according to people familiar with the matter.

Did Cannon hesitate because he was aware of the fact Trump had a long history of lying about everything all the time? Who’s to say! (Cannon did not respond the Post’s request for comment. A Trump spokesperson did not answer specific questions for the story, instead simply saying in a statement that the Justice Department “has no greater ally than the Bezos-subsidized Washington Post, which seems to only serve as the partisan microphone of leakers and liars buried deep within the bowels of America’s government. President Trump remains committed to defending the Constitution and the Office of the Presidency, ensuring the integrity of America for generations to come.” Jeff Bezos owns the Post.)

Of course, as it turns out, Cannon was right to question the accuracy of the claim Trump wanted him to make, given that classified documents were uncovered from Mar-a-Lago thanks to a May grand jury subpoena, in addition to the ones found when the FBI raided the place in August. (In fact, prosecutors said in September that Trump may still be in possession of government documents that are not his to keep.) In May, another lawyer for Trump, Evan Corcoran, told the DOJ that he was handing over all the requested material. In June, another Trump attorney signed a statement “asserting that all material marked as classified and held in boxes in a storage area at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and club had been returned to the government,” according to The New York Times. Obviously, that statement turned out not to be true.

And while the fact that Trump apparently wanted someone to lie on his behalf is not at all surprising, it is actually quite a big deal given the whole criminal investigation the Justice Department is currently conducting. Per the Post: